A time capsule of the greatest financial mania in the history of mankind, told in real-time by regular folks and patriots. May future generations better understand the madness of crowds, and how power and money corrupt.

49 comments:

Anonymous
said...

Private profit and then the public will bail out these crooks. Its all about greed the banker, investor and homeowner all wanted more and more money. No bailout, they keep saying that here a chance this will pay back the tax payer? When ever has the government paid or made money on their programs. What a joke and the sad part, it will pass.

Yep, we send our best and brightest (tongue firmly in cheek) to Harvard, and they get a degree with a license to steal money from the rest of us. Masters of the Universe should be strung up like they used to do to common criminals. Hang em all.

What's really amazing about all of this action is that the greedy little Wall Street devils are scrambling like rats to keep their rich lifestyles, while the common working man gets raped and is told not only that he must like being raped, but that he must also pay for his pillaging!

This is truly a Kagunga moment in American history, her story, our story!

How much do you want to bet that the guy from Kansas City who lost his job and house and is now living in a motel voted republican most of his life? Straight, white, males. 65% vote republican. I'll bet that guy will vote McCain.

These Bozos realized the whole buying "assets" at future value did not go over well so today they are changing the verbage to "somewhere between firesale and future value", and all sorts of double talk in between.

This country is scr*wed! These guys will say anything to get this crammed through and then they will do whatever they like with our money.

If this is a mortgage issue (people not getting loans) then use Fannie and Freddie? We already own them right? Call BS and shove this plan down Paulsons gullet. If the market tanks freeze trading and sort it out. The Russians don't need to go communist (TIC) to solve market problems, why should we?

A senator just proposed we take the 700 billion and set up a fund that buys preferred stock like Mr. Buffet, for example. Why not? Taxpayers would benefit if it works.Bernanke said he would have to check with the white house! (??) Then he said it might be considered nationalizing. And I think he said he woudn't have the authority. Oh is this a good cop bad cop thing with the Treasury?I still think this money is going to the Chinese and that is why it is so shrouded.

Watch the "TED". It it the spread between the US Treasury bill interest rate and the LIBOR (London Interbank lending rate). The LIBOR rate has been going up. I has an affect on US ARM rates. It will affect the rate on pay-option-arms (THE most ridiculous loans), majority of which are set to begin adjusting in May of next year.The Treasury rate has been going down as people flee to "safety" in T bills. The spread is at an all time high and going higher. This is a measure of the freezing up of credit. It comes on in the upper right corner of the CNBC format.

I was hoping Ron Paul would have gone a little more postal on Bernanke this morning. And where is Paulson today? I don't think Bush could have picked a more insincere, corrupt and arrogant person to run a dept. Probably in hiding due to threats made on his life.

The fatal flaw of the Paulson Plan is that taking bad debt off the banks hands will than make the banks give credit to customers that are already in debt up to their eyeballsand they have no equity in their homes for money injections either .

The world and the banks want safe havens now and will not be interested in extending credit to the USA people who have already gone on a drunken spending spree.

In other words, who would provide credit ,when the American people are not credit worthy .

The Paulson Plan gives fake grounds for the bail-outs ,and its a wonder why this dream team doesn't talk about how wages are not increasing and lack of jobs is the real cancer that is spreading to the in debt up to their eyeballs majority

The only thing this massive bail out would do is give the gamers time to dump their positions and head for safe havens . If the lawmakers give the evil ones the opportunity to get out of their position so they can give the finger to main street after they get that relief,the bail out will become more costly over all to the taxpayers .

I don't know why Congress/Senate is not asking for more options from many "Experts", instead of going on two jerks opinions like Paulson and the Fed Chairman ( both of which haven't called it right so far .

This is just the beginning, as more and more people start feeling the pinch in their wallets.

Unfortunately, this bail-out will only help those who were largely responsible for this mess, while the honest hard-working tax payers get stuck with the tab.

This bail-out will not work in saving the broader economy - it's what is termed "sunk cost" in a business.Throwing billions at a failed and faulty system won't revive it - Bernanke and Paulson know this, but they want to force tax-payers to bail-out their wealthy business associates instead.

i have a proposal. let us say that we the american taxpayers will approve the bailout on one condition. all the greedy ceo responsible for this economic turmoil will have to cut their wages & bonuses, and perform community service once a week until debt is paid off. for example, on saturday's they can pick up garbage along our freeways, out a sign around their neck that says - i'm sorry america!!

Hey HPers and Keith who like to bash Wall St, Bush, and Paulson. We are in this mess because Democrats like Dodd, Frank, and Cuomo pushed banks to lend to low income individuals and then refused to regulate Fannie and Freddie. Can you imagine if Citibank refused to lend to subprime borrowers 4 years ago, the outrage from the far left? Look at the top recipients of Fannie/Freddie lobby:

Bush admin, Mankiw, Greenspan, Cato Institute all pushed to regulate these clowns after the accounting scandals in 2003/04 and Dems, Raines, Fan/Fred preempted it on the Hill.

The essential problem is that people borrowed money they didn't have to buy houses they couldn't afford. There were plenty of people to buy this debt because we were in a yield bubble and Wall St merely mediated between demanders of credit and providers of capital. I

Oh, and it's not like 700 bln is going down the tube, it's 700 bln buying distressed assets. If nothing is done, I can assure you that you won't be able to get loans for homes, college, small business, anything. WAKE UP

People bought too much house. They couldn't pay the mortgage. They lost the house. That's all this was about. Now the MSM is trying to paint these people as victims.

Just vote Obama and you too can live in a $750,000 house while earning $12 an hour!!"

Hey idiot, that is great talk if you have 250000 homebuyers that screwed up and get foreclosed. It becomes YOUR problem when 4 million people get foreclosed, and the losses are in the hundreds of billions. Do you have millions in the bank? I thought not. Since you don't, do you have a job? Well, if these banks are allowed to fail, your job, along with mine and about 20% of your friends are going away. Who hires you? An executive, that makes far more than you, and can certainly whether a storm like this much better than you. Do you somehow think that by "saving taxpayer money" you are going to benefit from that money not being spent? How about a 401K, anyone here have one of those? Well that is probably going to lose half it's value the day after your savior Ron Paul declares victory. Please tell me how you or I are going to benefit if that money is not spent and the country goes in to recession and possible depression?

You know, I HATE how they keep saying "we are all to blame!". BS! I didn't take out a mortgage I coudn't afford, I didn't run up my credit cards, I didn't live beyond my means, I don't even have a car loan. I am NOT to blame!

This bailout is such a joke and makes me so mad. With the lack of jobs, those who do have jobs but can't afford anything - exactly WHO are they going to be lending this money to? I may not be as savvy as some but I can't believe I would see the day that American would die. If I hear one more time that the taxpayer NEEDS this bailout, I will scream.

Hey, I firmly believe that MY household is too big to fail - where's my bailout? But as a taxpayer, I already own AIG (my pmi company) Fannie Mae (who holds my mortgage) so as far as I'm concerned, I will be paying for these things twice. But what do I know.

You are a fucking moron. Your problem is you need a bailout because you can't make it on your own. I have enough money saved up that I could go years without working. I also have no debt and will never need any. So I don't give a shit if credit is available or not.

We need a good solid depression in this country. Wring out all the excesses that have been accumulated over the past 20 years.Unfortunately fucknust like you who need the government to wipe their ass will ensure we go through another 20 years of this shit.

If RTC2 is allowed to buy and hold distressed assets for long periods of time, will this keep prices from falling further? Could prices even rise a bit? ....How many years do I have to wait for housing prices to fall to earth?

This problem is much larger than many people realize - even people like Warren Buffet (and his staff of people feeding him information) don't see the full scope of what's happening.

Too much bad debt passed all around the world for far too long, this is a global systemic breakdown of enormous proportions.

It's really tragic that we still at this point believe by throwing lots of money at a problem it will go away - it will only get worse.

Bernanke/Paulson are using fear as an attempt to rush the passage of this bail-out, but fortunately there are those in congress who have a broader vision beyond just wall-street cronies - there clearly needs to be strict oversight put into place first.

There really is no immediate rush to pass this bail-out since any benefits of it to US tax-payers wouldn't be seen till several months down the road (assuming this money laundering scheme would even work - which it won't). However, the benefits to wall-street and our banking institutions will be immediate - and that's the real reason why Bernanke/Paulson want this passed so quickly.

Let's bail-out our buddies first, while the rest of the economy goes down the toilet.

We - the tax-paying citizens of this country - are the employers of these people. If they don't do what it's in our best interest for the nation, then they need to be fired.

Our vote - beyond marching, tree-sitting and picket signs - is the most effective weapon we have, short of actual physical force which we would only resort to when all else fails.

I'm not for physical force (we've seen how well that's worked already in IRAQ), but if our collective needs (home owners, house debters, renters) are not met nationally, then we will have no choice but to resort to drastic measures.

When people can no longer provide basic necessities for themselves, they are no longer hesitant to take matters into their own hands.

"Fratto insisted that the plan was not slapped together and had been drawn up as a contingency over previous months and weeks by administration officials. He acknowledged lawmakers were getting only days to peruse it, but he said this should be enough."

patrat said... You know, I HATE how they keep saying "we are all to blame!". BS! I didn't take out a mortgage I coudn't afford, I didn't run up my credit cards, I didn't live beyond my means, I don't even have a car loan. I am NOT to blame!

US TOO DAMMIT!!!! I DONT EVEN USE A CREDIT CARD I USE DEBIT!! ONLY LOAN I HAVE IS STUDENT LOANS.